Essentially not for profit mid sized client (t/o in region of £70m, over several thousand 'projects', size and complexity varying hugely) requires a flexible project accounting solution. It must support a hierarchical project structure.
The usual core accounting functions are required but main volume is around Accounts Payable. If it has some elements of project management e.g. resource scheduling, timesheets then that would be a bonus for the future.
Can anyone recommend a solution please? It needs to be fairly mainstream and not cloud based.
Thanks in advance
Replies (9)
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SAP is very good, may be too large
SAP is an excellent system, not sure if it will be cost-effective for your size of company. The company I've used this had £1bn turnover spread over several hundred projects, some revenue and some capital in nature.
The project hierarchy setup is very clear, easy to navigate around and easy to identify the project node you are booking costs to.
Some of these contracts were fixed price, but many were cost plus spread over up to 7 different customers. So the system had to cope with a very complex allocation matrix by customer, and accurately produce cost reports by project for each customer.
Sage 200
Crendon,
You could certainly take a look at Sage 200 as one option as it includes parent>Child projects and time and/or materials.
For Accounts payable efficiency you could consider PaperLess integrated with Sage 200 giving you workflow approvals process, automatic invoice recognition and transactions and documents all viewable together at various levels including projects.
Phil
wary of Sage
As part of a restructuring I was part of a team which implemented a transfer of about 200 projects - sales values from £250k a year to £10m plus a year - from SAP to Sage.
It became apparent in the course of this that the Sage project ledger was just a bolt-on to the GL and had very little of the functionality of the SAP PL we were used to. We advised the Group FD not to proceed with the implementation, he rejected this advice and all hell broke loose when the system went live, admittedly with near-zero user acceptance testing due to the Sage team having got miles behind program. Sage project reporting leaves much to be desired for anything but the very simplest of projects in my view - or it did 3 years ago when I last used it.
A few months later our FD was replaced. I would be very very wary of Sage projects unless substantial, radical re-design has been made in the past 3 years.
Project Accounting
I work for a company which specialises in several vertical market software solutions.
Projects (including construction) is one such speciality.
Although we do work with Sage 50, we would not recommend Sage for complex project costing scenarios.
I suggest you drop me a line and tell me more.
Regards
Martin Lea
0191 256 9550
Project Accounting Agresso Business World
Unit4 Business Software UK have many NFP customers using their Agresso Business World product it meets all the requirements for complex projects at a sensible cost and with the flexibility to cope with change that customers using SAP and Sage may struggle with.
My.N from Accounting Office may be worth considering
Dear Crendon
My.N from Accounting Office Software Ltd has extensive Project Accounting capabilities, as well as the usual Accounting functions, My.N allows you to identify income and expenditure within the P&L through Department, Cost Centre, Site and Depot (and any combination of these).
In addition, income and expenditure can be associated with a product allowing you to report on activities outside the P&L - useful in managing projects which span financial years or which need to be controlled in isolation.
Budgets can be set by department, cost centre and nominal, and can be revised and saved as the financial year progresses. Reporting can be against actual performance or against the original or revised budget.
Requisitions and approval are also taken care of.
If you would like to discuss this further, please give me a call on 01792 818177 or have a look at www.accountingoffice.co.uk
Thanks
Claire
PS - disclosure, I work at Accounting Office Software Ltd.
Access: Project Accounting software for mid market
I would recommend having a look at Access Dimensions - which is project accounting software for the mid market sector.
We support a wide range of clients in the NFP and charitable sector whom are using our solution for financial and project accounting. Some of these are extending into the areas of time recording, expense mgt, e-procurement etc.
More information can be found at http://www.theaccessgroup.com/products/dimensions--focalpoint.aspx
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss further,
Thanks, Steve
Dynamics Great Plains
Hi,
Microsoft Great Plains is fantastic for Project Accounting. I have implemented it twice now and it has all the features you mention in the opening post.
There are some inflexibilities around it but nothing that I have come across that would be a show stopper.
The reporting lets it down but Microsoft are work with Jet reports which are brilliant and so easy to set up and use once trained.
Please feel free to email me should you want to have a chat about it.
Emma
Microoft Dynamics GP2010R2 will meet this requirement
Hi Crendon
Have a look at GP 2010 Project Accounting. It will meet your criteria as it has a 4 level reporting criteria.
ST Consulting has implemented some large Project sites for organisations with that level of turnover and sites with large numbers of projects, or projects which span multiple fiscal years.
Feel free to get it touch for more information.
Haseet